Summary Edited for Convenience
Date - Thursday 17th December
Venue - The Bell, Wenden's Ambo, CB11 4JY
Time - Start at 1900, finish around 0000
Theme - The Unknown Shipper and His Peculiar Friends
Form - Steak Dinner, followed by port. Vegetarian steak may be available.
Bring - £20-25 and a bottle of decanted unknown port; a bottle of peculiar port is optional
Who - 14 places available; so far confirmed THRA + 1 (who we think is Cookie), AHB + 1, DRT + 2, JDAW, ARK, WS1, SRG, BMHR, JGH, AP; Gman + 1 have confirmed that they will not be able to make it

ORIGINAL POST
Having seen mention of this on a couple of occasions in other threads, I've decided that it's time to start discussing dates - there are only 225 shopping days before Christmas (including today).

I'd like to request a Thursday night, as this works well for me and I can tie it in with a visit to my team in Felixstowe before driving back to the office. December 10th and 17th would be the obvious two dates.

Tom - would you be happy to host at the Bell again? They look after us so well.

Theme - any objection to the traditional "The Unknown Shipper and His Peculiar Friends"?

Oh yes, and I'd like to reserve one of the seats round the table please!

WS1 wrote:If possible I would like to attend as well. Since I have not been at the Bell before, may I ask how difficult it is to get there and back from/to London?

regards

WS1

It's not too difficult to get there - I think that Jacob did it by train last year.

Getting back may be a bit more difficult if you want to get back the same night. Although, if you needed to, you could probably organise a taxi to Stansted Airport and then use the Stansted Express to get you back to London even in the small hours of the morning. However, my advice would be to stay the night in a local hotel and then to catch the train back into London the next morning.

Getting there is fine; it’s about an hour on the train from Liverpool Street to Audley End and then about 5 minutes walking (though check the map beforehand as it’s completely dark when you arrive). I think there are a couple of trains an hour.

I’d also suggest staying in a hotel as the last train leaves at 2310 and gets back to Liverpool Street at 0018.

Could I also express interest in attending? Sounds like a fine occasion, as ever.

Ghandih

PS As usual I don't know where to suggest this, so I'm just leaving it hanging in a post scriptum in the hope someone will notice and cope: could I request that someone with The Power adjusts the names of these threads once the date (for sure) and the venue (maybe) have been nailed, so that occasional visitors such as myself can more quickly ascertain what's going on, where and when? That would be helpful. Gh.

Ghandih wrote:PS As usual I don't know where to suggest this, so I'm just leaving it hanging in a post scriptum in the hope someone will notice and cope: could I request that someone with The Power adjusts the names of these threads once the date (for sure) and the venue (maybe) have been nailed, so that occasional visitors such as myself can more quickly ascertain what's going on, where and when? That would be helpful. Gh.

In theory, the sticky on this forum will be updated with dates and times and things as they firm up; but I confess that I have been rather busy the last few weeks and have been remiss in keeping it up to date.

When I do issue an update, I will try to get into the habit of posting a reply to say so to make sure the thread is flagged as having a new message.